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7 Most Common Questions About Salesforce Certifications

Salesforce certifications mark the first major milestone in a Salesforce professional’s career. They are great for power users that are looking to dive into Salesforce’s rich functionality further, Salesforce admins who want to solidify their learning by ensuring their knowledge is best in class, or for professionals looking to explore a career in Salesforce.

Before you embark on the next step in your career, here are some of the most common questions people want to know when deciding to sign up for Salesforce certification training.

1. What are Salesforce Certifications?

Salesforce certifications are a way to prove to the community and your peers that you have attained a certain level of knowledge around the Salesforce platform. The Salesforce Admin certification, in particular, is a great way to show that you understand the core Salesforce platform, how to manage it on a day to day basis, and extend its standard functionality by using declarative features.

2. How are the Exams Formatted?

Salesforce exams are almost always multiple choice, with some exceptions for the more advanced certifications. In these exams, you will be asked scenario or fact-based questions that will require one or more answers.

Salesforce is infamous for throwing curveballs, so although these exams are multiple choice, keep your wits about you and ensure you know your lookup relationships from your master-detail!

3. When Should I Take a Salesforce Certification Exam?

Salesforce certifications require a large amount of knowledge around the platform in order to pass them. You need to know how it works as a user, backend administrator, and understand its capabilities from a developer’s point of view. This adds up to a lot of revision and practical exercises in a developer environment!

You should look to book an exam when you have confidently covered all areas of the study guide. This will include both fact-based questions, as well as scenario-based questions where you are required to suggest a solution.

4. What do the Certifications Cost?

Certification prices vary and tend to get a bit higher towards the more advanced areas, but most foundation exams are $200, with $100 per retake. If you are already working within an organization that wishes to support you with your Salesforce career development, then I strongly recommend asking them to support you with these and other training costs.

5. How Should I Revise for the Exams?

This is one of the most common questions I’m asked on a day to day basis. Salesforce makes this a bit tricky as it doesn’t give you a direct learning path to certification success. But good news! There is an increasing abundance of training material online that ranges in mediums and price ranges so that you are sure to find something that fits you. Here are a few great resources:

  1. One way I like to give back to the community is through my blog; this provides a lot of content on the topics of certifications and how to go about getting trained up. I also host some mock exams so you know what to expect.
  2. If you are looking to get some varied but not necessarily certification-focussed experience, then Trailhead is your best bet to learn about the general Salesforce platform.
  3. If you are looking for a full training course at a great price point, here at Simplilearn we offer comprehensive training materials that guide you through the entire Salesforce Administrator and App Builder certifications.

6. How Long do I Need to Revise?

A common question people want to know is how long it will actually take until you’re fully prepared. This always depends on your existing level of skill, how long you can dedicate to revising and the type of environment you’re working in. As a rough guideline see below on my recommendations to revise depending on your skill level:

Experienced – 1 Month

Intermediate – 1-3 Months

Beginner – 3+ Months

7. Where do I Take the Exam?

There are two ways you can take the exam, onsite or online…

Onsite – If you wish to take the exam onsite, you will need to book it at a certified training center, your nearest one can be found on the Salesforce webassessor portal. This is a great option if you like the more classic exam environment, strict conditions, no noise, and an invigilator looking over you!

Online – If there are no exam centers near you, or maybe you just feel like doing the exam in the comfort of your own home or office, you can take the exam online. This requires you to install some temporary monitoring software on your computer to ensure you cannot cheat. You will also need to have access to an external webcam that can be placed to cover your whole desk and computer.

My personal preference is always to take it at the exam center. I quite like the pressure of an examination environment!

Conclusion

Salesforce exams can be daunting, but they are completely within reach of anyone that is dedicated and willing to learn the platform inside out. Hopefully, these few questions have put your mind at ease with some of the basics around the exam. If you’re looking for more resources, make sure to check out “5 Questions to Help you decide if a Salesforce certification is right for you.”

Article Source: simplilearn

Elevate Your Career: The Impact of Salesforce Certification in the Cloud Computing Industry

The range and scope of opportunities available to a Salesforce professional are among the best in the IT industry and might continue to rise in the future. A recent report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., stated that Cloud Computing marketing is expected to earn over $127 billion by 2017.

With the constant expansion of the domain into functions ranging from Customer Relationship Management to Mobile Marketing, the demand for capable and qualified cloud computing professionals is at an all-time high.

The most popular and useful Cloud Computing tool is the suite of enterprise sales and relationship management software that has been developed by Salesforce.com.

Most Fortune 500 companies want professionals who are skilled in Salesforce — the platform that has transformed CRM across the globe.

The best and the most efficient way to ensure that you have the requisite skills is to acquire a Salesforce certification.

But, how will a Salesforce certification help me progress in my career?

Certification in Salesforce will help you prove two things to your potential employer:

No. 1: Your knowledge

A Salesforce certification will give you an in-depth understanding of the platform and will also improve customer relations and sales for your company. Getting certified is also useful for professionals with years of experience in the platform; they often learn new shortcuts and features that they hadn’t known about previously.

No.2: Your experience

Certification training courses emphasize hands-on experience, industry-relevant projects, and case studies, often based on real-life scenarios.

When you enroll in a Salesforce certification course, you will receive 12 hours of training devoted to industry projects and over 20 hours of in-class lab practice, which will increase your expertise in the domain. Certification also increases your chances of earning a high salary.

Well, how much will you earn as a certified Salesforce professional?

IT professionals can expect as much as a 40% pay raise with a single Salesforce credential on their resume. And as the saying goes, the more the better.

According to a study conducted in 2013, the average salary of a Salesforce expert with no certification was $69,600. A certified Salesforce professional, on the other hand, earned an average salary of $86,850.

On average, Salesforce certified professionals earn over 25% more than their non-certified peers.

Certified Salesforce Developer

Starting salary – $47,000

On an average – $87,000

Primary tasks

1. Work within companies to provide medium-to-large-scale Salesforce implementations

2. Work as independent Salesforce consultants.

3. Use Apex Code and Visualforce to extend the standard functionality of Salesforce.

4. Use Java and other programming languages to interact with Salesforce.

5. Distinguish between scenarios that require a code and those that do not.

Certified Salesforce Administrator

Starting salary – $40,000

On an average – $64,000

Primary tasks

1. Have a deep understanding of the configuration side of Salesforce.

2. Set up users, administration, and training processes.

3. Project work also features heavily in an Administrator role.

Salary estimates for certified Salesforce professionals

Indeed.com states that both certified Salesforce Developers and certified Salesforce App Builders earn $97,000 on average, while a certified Salesforce Administrator earns $92,000 on average.

Well, now you have a clear idea of the salaries of certified Salesforce professionals.

The high salary figures are not rumors but a legitimate fact.

So act on it!

Get a Salesforce certification and join the fast-growing Cloud Computing industry.

Article Source: simplilearn

What does a Salesforce Professional Do? Exploring Salesforce Roles and Profiles

There are a number of articles and blogs out there discussing the demand, the salaries, or the need for certification for a Salesforce professional. But before actually considering the field, what most people want to know is information about the roles and responsibilities they would be expected to play as a Salesforce professional.

Am I right?

Most often people are blindsided by the numbers – be it salary or the high demand due to the skills-gap.

Being the dynamic field that it is, Cloud Computing offers a range of opportunities for professionals looking to pursue a career here. And the scope of innovation in this field is said to increase in the coming days. Salesforce, being the most effective and innovative adaptations of Cloud Computing, has a massive demand for certified employees.

So, once you get your Salesforce Admin or Developer certification and are ready to step foot into the industry, what would be your roles and responsibilities?

The role of a Salesforce Developer

Ideally, the roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce Developer would consist of the following:

1. Create the functionality, mainly Application Logic, which would include the writing of the Apex code. This list may also include the creation of Visualforce pages based on the employee or customer requirements.

2. Help with enhanced integration of the Salesforce APIs with the existing systems or data – these processes are integrated with both the directions to ensure efficient communication between the two systems.

3. Testing of development within a staging Sandbox before the final submission.

4. With the assistance of a Salesforce Admin, perform bug fixing.

5. Perform ongoing documentation throughout the development process.

6. Communicate with Salesforce Admins constantly as a means to prepare themselves for customer interaction or support issues.

The role of a Salesforce Administrator

Salesforce Admins are the go-to people in the organization and are expected to have an in-depth understanding of the Salesforce customization.

Ideally, the roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce Administrator would consist of the following:

1. User maintenance: Adding new users, checking the system permissions of the users to restrict or to provide data access, and to modify the existing accounts.

2. Engage in a clean-up process: Removal of duplicate contacts and accounts by merging them or mass updating.

3. Customization and development of the setup menu by modifying the page layouts, creation of assignment rules, and picking out the list values.

4. Using the data stored in the Salesforce CRM to create reports and dashboard as well as produce information assets that will, in turn, help boost business revenue.

5. Provide ongoing documentation to colleagues and customers by updating the existing documentation so that they are on track with the novel Salesforce enhancements and releases.

6. Provide enhanced support for Developers and clients which include communicating with the customers, clients, and developers about the new developments as well as the support functionalities.

In short, the basic difference in roles between a Salesforce Developer and a Salesforce Administrator is:

– A Salesforce developer typically builds the functionality including Apex/ Visualforce in a sandbox before handing it over to the administrator to schedule deployment.

– A Salesforce admin, however, will manage and administer the production. The admins usually carry out minor declarative changes and have the responsibility to manage releases into the production.

So, there you have it. The roles and responsibilities of Salesforce Administrators and Salesforce Developers. Do they seem intriguing to you? Is this where you want to be?

Well, then take up the Salesforce certification, today!

Article Source: Simplilearn

23 Top Questions and Answers for Salesforce Interviews

The more experienced we are, the more we grow to understand that the questions we ask or the answers we give in an interview say a lot about our enthusiasm and level of interest for a product, company, or organization. This is definitely the case with Salesforce, the mightiest Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service in the world.

1. What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is the most effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product that is delivered to subscribers as a cost-effective software-as-a-service (SaaS).

2. What is a custom object in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, custom objects refer specifically to database tables that store data related to your company in Salesforce.com.

3. What does a custom object permit the user to do?

Once the custom object is defined, the subscriber can perform the following tasks: create custom fields, relate the custom object to other records, track events and tasks, build page layouts, create a custom tab for the custom object, analyze custom object data, create dashboards and reports, and share custom tabs, custom apps, custom objects, and various other related components. None of these tasks can be accomplished until the custom object has a definition.

4. What is Self-Relationship?

A Self-Relationship is a lookup relationship to the same object. It is this premise that allows users to take the object “Merchandise” and create relationships with other objects.

5. What is Object Relationship Overview?

In Salesforce, the object relationship overview links custom object records to standard object records in a related list. This is helpful to track product defects in related customer cases. Salesforce allows users to define different types of relationships by creating custom relationship fields on an object.

6. What can cause data loss in Salesforce?

Data loss in Salesforce can be caused by a number of reasons, including:

  • Changing data and date-time
  • Migrating to percent, number, and currency from other data types
  • Changing from the multi-select picklist, checkbox, an auto number to other types
  • Altering to multi-select picklist from any type except picklist
  • Changing to auto-number except for a text
  • Changing from text-area to e-mail, phone, URL, and text

7. How is SaaS beneficial to Salesforce?

SaaS is subscription-based, so clients can choose not to renew and discontinue using the program at any time without penalty other than not being able to use Salesforce. SaaS is intended to help users avoid heavy initial startup fees and investments. SaaS applications use a simple Internet interface supported by easy integration.

8. How does Salesforce track sales?

Salesforce is a tracking program that records a number of helpful basic details, such as:

  • Number of customers served daily
  • Daily sales volume
  • Detailed reports from Sales Manager
  • Sales figures by month or quarter
  • Most importantly, Salesforce tracks and reports repeat customer activity, which is the key to any sales organization.

9. How many types of relationships are offered by Salesforce?

Salesforce recognizes two relationship types: Master-detail relationships and Lookup relationships.

10. What is the trigger?

A trigger is the code that is executed before or after the record is updated or inserted.

11. What is the difference between Trigger and Workflow?

Workflow is an automated process that fires an action based on evaluation criteria and rule criteria. As described above, Trigger is the code that is executed on or after the record is updated or inserted.

12. What is a static resource in Salesforce?

With Salesforce’s static resource, subscribers can upload zip files, images, jar files, JavaScript, and CSS files that can be referred in a Visualforce page. The optimum size of static resources in Salesforce is 250 MB.

13. What is the difference between Force.com and Salesforce.com?

Force.com is  Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), while Salesforce.com is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

14. Is there a limit for data.com records?

Salesforce users can see their limit form setup easily by simply clicking data.com administration/Users. From the data.com users section, the users can see their monthly limit and exactly how many records are exported during the month.

15. What are the three types of object relations in Salesforce?

The three types of object relations in Salesforce are:

  • One-to-many
  • Many-to-many
  • Master-detail

The relation types are quite logical once the user becomes familiar with the software program.

16. What are the different types of reports available in Salesforce?

The different types of reports in Salesforce are:

  • Tabular report that displays the grand total in table form
  • Matrix report where grouping is based upon both rows and columns
  • Summary reports that are detailed reports in which the grouping is based on columns.
  • Joined report which allows two or more reports to be joined in a single report

17. Is it possible to schedule a dynamic dashboard in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, it is not possible to schedule a dynamic dashboard.

18. What is the junction object and what purpose does it serve?

Junction objects are used to build many-to-many relationships between objects. For example, the user can take a recruiting application where a position for a job can be linked to many candidates or can link a candidate to many other jobs. In order to connect the data model, a third party object is referred to as a junction object. In the given example, the junction object is “job application.”

19. What is an Audit Trail?

The Audit Trail function in Salesforce is useful for gaining information or for tracking all the recent setup changes that the administration has done in the organization. The audit trail can preserve data for up to six months.

20. Explain the Salesforce dashboard?

In Salesforce, the dashboard is a pictorial representation of the report. 20 reports can be added to a single dashboard.

21. What is the difference between SOQL and SOSL?

SOQL is Salesforce Object Query Language and SOSL is Salesforce Object Search Language. If you are sensing that Salesforce is a culture unto itself, you are correct!

22. What is a Wrapper Class?

A Wrapper Class is a class whose instances are a collection of other objects and is used to display different objects on a Visualforce page in the same table.

23. What is the sharing rule?

The sharing rules are applied when a user wishes to allow access to other users.

24. Planning for a career in Salesforce? 

Salesforce has become the centerpiece of any company’s sales and marketing automation efforts, and the demand for qualified Salesforce administrators is as high as ever. Nonetheless, competition is also tough for the right positions, so preparation is key if you want to stand out from the crowd.

These 24 most common questions and answers will help you prepare effectively and perform well in Salesforce interviews. Study them thoroughly to make a good impression on your prospective employers.

Article Source: simplilearn

How and When to Use These Four Salesforce Automation Tools

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One of the reasons that Salesforce has become the No. 1 CRM in the world (by twice its nearest competitor) is the power it puts in the hands of Salesforce Administrators. The ability to completely customize the system to your unique process needs means more people than ever are moving to Salesforce.

Automation tools in Salesforce can eliminate monotonous tasks, freeing up an admin’s time to do more profound things. These tools include Workflow Rules, Process Builder, and Flow, and Apex. Each tool comes with its own unique features, advantages, and disadvantages, meaning that there is probably the best-fit tool for each scenario an admin faces. In order to understand when to use which, we’ll take a look at the features each one offers.

Workflow Rules

Workflow Rules is perhaps the most well recognized and most used tool, as it has been around the longest and is very dependable. While Workflows are somewhat limited in functionality compared to the other tools available, they rarely break, is very fast, and is extremely easy to use.

Features: Update a field, Create a task, Send an email, send an outbound message

Advantages: Their ease of use makes them an excellent starter tool for any new admin. They are very hard to “break” and since the functionality is so simple, it’s rare to run into issues. Workflows also have hardly any limits; if you have a large org with a lot of data, workflows should handle it without a problem.

Disadvantages: Workflow rules will only evaluate one outcome, either it’s true and it will execute, or it’s false and it won’t. The fact that they are so simple can also be their downfall; if you’re looking for advanced automation, look away from Workflow Rules!

Process Builder

Released not too long ago, the Process Builder was the breath of fresh air that Admins needed in their life. Think of a multi-decision workflow rule on steroids! Decked out in Salesforce’s new Lightning UI, this automation tool is easy to build, has a huge amount of functionality, and has increased the declarative work an admin can do by a huge margin.

Features: Create a record, Update a field, Update a related objects field, Log a call, Launch a flow, Send an email, Post to chatter, Submit for approval.

Advantages: From the features list, the advantages are clear: the process builder can do almost everything! You can also have multiple decision points, meaning that you can have many more outcomes than workflows. Salesforce has also made the Process Builder so easy to use that any admin should have no problem extending the functionality of their Org using this tool.

Disadvantages: If you are looking for a huge scale, the Process Builder does run into various limits quickly which should be taken into account with a large org. One of the limits you could run into, for example,  is the amount of SOQL queries being run at once. So if you’re looking to use this automation feature while simultaneously loading thousands of records, think again.  Unlike workflows, you can also “break” this tool, meaning your users can run into issues if it isn’t set up correctly.

Flow

The unsung hero for a lot of Admins, Flow is the most powerful declarative automation tool you’ve never heard of. Also known as Visual Flow, this tool is primarily used to generate wizard-style screens that can take a user through a series of steps, updating records along the way.

However, Flow can also be used without a wizard-style screen, running in the background similar to other automation tools, but way more powerful.

Features: All of the features you get from Process Builder, plus wizard-style screens, delete records, update any record in the system (not just related).

Advantages: If Process Builder can’t do it, then Flow usually can. It is generally a lot more powerful, not just in terms of specific features, but in terms of the bigger picture. It gives Admins access to “code-like” functionality, without having to write a single line.

Disadvantages: Limits are similar to that of Process Builder. There’s a large learning curve, so do not expect an easy-to-use wizard-style screen like the Process Builder. Again, processes can easily be broken.

Apex

We finally arrive at the only tool on this list that requires development skills. Apex is Salesforce’s very own programming language and can basically do anything on the platform. Most complex implementations will need Apex language for various reasons, so even if you’re not a developer, you should know why Apex is used and what it can do.

Features: Everything listed in the previous tools plus so, so much more.

Advantages: When declarative tools can’t do the job, Apex is here to save the day. It can scale extremely well, so any large implementations where limits are typically an issue, Apex can handle it.

Disadvantages: Learning Apex requires programming skills, and can also be time-consuming as you have to write test classes alongside each bit of code. However, this could be looked at as another advantage, as this ensures it won’t break anything.

Conclusion

Automation tools are meant to make the jobs of Salesforce Admins and even Salesforce Developers easier. As you can see, Salesforce isn’t short on such tools, providing you a wide range of options to fit your needs and level of commitment.  When looking at a feature to solve a complex business problem, you should always take a step back and look at the advantages and disadvantages of each. Every tool on this list has its place in the Salesforce ecosystem, and it’s your job to correctly determine which one it is!

The Rising Demand for Salesforce Experts

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Salesforce is the world’s most popular CRM platform, with at least a 20 percent market share, and there are more jobs than ever at companies that use Salesforce platforms and applications. There are many new interesting Salesforce specializations that you might not even know about beyond CRM. Ben McCarthy, founder of the world’s most popular Salesforce blog, SalesforceBen discussed with Simplilearn marketing manager Ryan Ward the rising demand for Salesforce experts in the job market today, typical salaries for Salesforce professionals, and more.

You can watch the full webinar here or just read the highlights below.

The Salesforce Story

Salesforce is a classic start-up story. Parker Harris and Marc Benioff started it in an apartment where they wanted to create a CRM system that was as easy to use as Amazon. Now, they’ve turned it into a huge company that has many streams and products, from sales marketing to analytics.

The majority of Salesforce products have to do with sales customer service, but Salesforce can be used for “literally anything,” says McCarthy. And while Salesforce job positions have always been pretty much the same (admin, consultant, technical architect), the specializations are becoming even more apparent. “You really need to stand out and have that specialization,” says McCarthy, “and one of the best is Lightning—you really want to be ahead of the curve on that.”

Salesforce’s Integrations

Salesforce integrates with popular marketing automation and email marketing tools including:-

  • ExactTarget (acquired by Salesforce)
  • Pardot
  • Marketing Cloud
  • HubSpot
  • MailChimp

If there is no app readily available to integrate Salesforce into a certain kind of software, one can be built. Basically, if a company isn’t integrated with Salesforce, it “really is doing something wrong,” says McCarthy.

Why Is Salesforce so Popular?

  • The company constantly innovates
  • The amazing culture created by the company and the platform that brings people together
  • The online community provides help for people who have questions or problems
  • A lot of effort put into making its system  easy, customizable, and integrative
  • Other Salesforce products that automatically lay out a roadmap for you: Once you’ve done sales, you can switch to service and then marketing automation.

Shortage of Salesforce Professionals

Currently, there just aren’t enough people trained in Salesforce to meet companies’ needs. One reason is that Salesforce still isn’t a household name the way some of its competitors are. Unless you’re in the business, you own a company, or you work at a company that uses Salesforce, it’s very unlikely that you actually know what it is—it’s not a consumer-facing company.

However,  some established and high-profile companies around the world use it. For example, T Mobile, 21st Century Fox, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Unilever, and most of the big pharma companies use Salesforce. And, IDC released a paper in October 2017 saying that by 2022, 3.3 million jobs are expected to come into the Salesforce ecosystem—not just at Salesforce but at its partner users. Salesforce has been growing 25 to 30 percent year on year, and the companies that use it are growing as well—and they need more Salesforce pros to support that growth. Because the ecosystem is huge and still growing, the Salesforce job market is very safe, McCarthy says. And, the skills you learn as a Salesforce pro are highly transferable–they’re invaluable even if you wish to switch to another industry.

Developing Salesforce Skills

Whatever budget you have, there are tools available to help you become familiar with Salesforce and develop your skills, such as:

  • Developer organisations—you can sign up right now for free and get Salesforce and start practicing
  • Trailhead, which is geared toward people learning the Salesforce platform
  • Simplilearn’s Salesforce certification training programs can really help you develop skills and advance up the career ladder. Some of the material is written and some are videos, and it’s all self-paced, covering the basics to advanced material. And, each certification is in a very specific area.

Salesforce in the Working World

How do you decide which path—administrator, developer, or app builder—is right for you?

There is some overlap, but each path is pretty distinct. All three are entry-level certifications. The administrator is very geared to standard functionality on Sales and Service Cloud, but there is an element of extending it, an implementation needs to be customized to fit in the business. Platform App Builder is geared toward extending the Salesforce platform with declarative functionality—it has less to do with standard features like quoting, managing your leads or pipeline, and more to do with how you can use process automation to completely automate business processes. The developer certification is geared towards programmatic customizations of Salesforce—Apex (which is Salesforce’s programming language) and Visualforce, the custom UI language.

What role can those new to the workforce expect to start in with Salesforce?

Admin, consultant, or developer is a good role to start off with, but there are a lot of other roles available as well, such as sales operations and sales administrator on the business process side, McCarthy says.

What types of companies are likely to hire someone at the entry level and offer opportunities to build a Salesforce career?

Consultancies are especially good because they find it easy to train people in Salesforce, and when you’re surrounded by consultants, the knowledge is especially easy to pick up, McCarthy says. He also advises looking at nonprofits, because they often hire entry-level people due to smaller budgets. Even working pro bono for one is a great way to gain experience.

What are some entry-level job titles you can search for online?

Admin, consultant, and developer are just a few, but there are different terms for “sales” in the descriptions, so you should search for “Salesforce” in the description.

What platforms can you use to search for Salesforce jobs?

LinkedIn and Glassdoor are great; also, because Salesforce is such a hot market, recruiters can also be valuable resources. McCarthy advises to build up a network and find someone who’s invested in you.

How can you stand out with your résumé and cover letter? What soft skills might help you in your application process?

Understanding the sales process and how salespeople think is highly valuable, McCarthy says, and anything you’ve done that’s client-facing or in customer support is important.

What’s a typical Salesforce salary?

Indeed’s estimate for Salesforce administrators in the U.S.is about $90,000 per year. In India, it’s 410,000 rupees. Indeed’s estimate for Salesforce developers in the U.S. is $109,000 per year and 510,000 rupees in India.

If you have five or more years of experience, what are the ideal backgrounds for those three main job titles of admin, consultant or developer?

If you’re a developer, Apex is very similar to the Java programming language, so switching from Java should be pretty painless. Anyone in sales or who understands business processes is very well-placed to become an administrator or a platform app builder. As Salesforce is a database, any background in computer science will be an advantage, McCarthy says.

A Salesforce career is rewarding both personally and financially, McCarthy says. And the more quickly you get into it, the more quickly you can start reaping the rewards!

Eligibility Requirements and Examination Process – Salesforce Developer Certification Course

The Salesforce Developer certification is a necessary credential that bestows the necessary skills and knowledge of designing custom-made applications and analytics while being aided by declarative features of the Salesforce platform. It is a certification that proves a professional’s ability to build specific data models, identify business logic, design user-interface and ensure security for customized applications. This credential helps professionals to come to terms with the value of sales and revenue income forecasts. Certified developers have the ability to better customize Salesforce applications, business processes and maintain a high degree of the workflow.

Here is a sample video that takes you through introduction of Salesforce:

Accreditation body

Salesforce.com is the main accreditation body that dictates the structure of the Salesforce Developer certification. They have however allowed ATOs to oversee the training of eligible candidates who then must take the exam from Salesforce.com. Their website offers the examination structure as well as sample examination questions. A candidate is expected to qualify for the course through a number of prerequisites that are well documented on the website.

 Eligibility Requirements

Salesforce.com stipulates a minimum set of requirements that all qualified candidates must go through. The minimum qualification requirement is a degree in BBA, BCA, MCA or MBA. A candidate is also required to have a good understanding of the basic concepts and functionalities in the Salesforce platforms. A training provider is expected to take candidates through the Salesforce platform to enable them to qualify for the certification. Once a candidate proves that they have this qualification, they can then be allowed to apply for the certification exams.

 Certification process

All candidates who wish to attain the Salesforce Developer certification must ensure they have attained the eligibility criteria by obtaining the necessary training. The process to get accredited will take a candidate through a short series of stages that will require them to visit Salesforce after they have undergone training for the same. Candidates then need to register for the Salesforce DEV 401 examination – the test for Salesforce developers. Candidates then need to take the exam so as to be certified. The exam is online-based having a multiple-choice questions format with 60 questions in total. The test lasts for about 90 minutes. The percentage passing score is 68%, which is a minimum score for all candidates.

Accredited Training Partner

Salesforce.com dictates the Salesforce developer certification and allows Accredited Training Organizations (ATO) to run the courses as directed by them. The developer certification gives a candidate immense benefits that can qualify them for many job opportunities. The certification is priceless and requires a considerable amount of money. It also takes up a lot of time to master what is required. right ATO. Simplilearn is one of the best training providers; any candidate can partner with. They offer the best services, having trained over 200,000 professionals all over the world. They also offer the best learning and training environment by providing amenities like 24-hour lab practice and real-life case studies. They have also maintained a high pass rate over the years.

There is no post-training required, once candidates have successfully passed the examination and received their certification? Certification holders can also add other credentials from Salesforce.com such as administration to their portfolio.

Examination Format

Upon visiting the Salesforce.com website, one can clearly see the requirements to achieve success in the exams. To pass the exam, an individual should not only be able to build custom applications through point-and-click capabilities on Salesforce, but also be able to design data model, user interface, security for customized applications, and business logic. Designing portals, reports, and dashboards are also a necessity. The examination takes the format of multiple-choice questions with 60 questions in total. The exam duration is 90 minutes with a passing score of 68%. Candidates need to register with an examination fee of $200. The examination body does not allow hard-copy or online materials inside the examination center.

Retaking the Exam

The Salesforce Developer certification exam is intensive and an all-inclusive exam that requires proper attention and study. The examination body, Salesforce.com offers to revise material and examination outline to help interested candidates do well in the examination. However, it is quite normal to find one or two candidates who may fail to attain the minimum passage score of 68%. This should not worry you as you can retake the examination and attain your desired certification. Candidates, who wish to re-sit the test, must resubmit their registration details together with a re-take fee of $100. You should go through the areas that you failed to increase your chances of doing well in the retake.

 Career growth and role of post-certification

The job market is becoming competitive day by day; it is, therefore, wise for you to add value to your resume before you submit it for job consideration. Statistics show that Salesforce professionals are in demand in the job market. The figure being talked about here is 159% since 2008 – this information can be found on Salesforce’s website. The pay bracket for Salesforce is high, close to $100,000. Salesforce developers are the most sought-after since they hold the highest recognizable credential. Most employers are now interested in employing individuals who can help their organization with high competitive skills; having the Salesforce developer certification gives you an edge over your colleagues. Salesforce requires holders of this credential to work extremely smart to try and maintain their certification.

Post examination requirement

After the examination is completed, holders of the certification need to protect their credentials by practicing their professionalism to the fullest and adhere to the Salesforce platform requirements. There is no expiration of the certification and holders are highly regarded in the sales and application developing market. There is also much more to learn by following and reading books and websites on the Salesforce platform. There are also other advanced certifications that can be taken by holders of this credential. Maintaining the credential is the most important aspect to be performed by credential holders. Holders of the Salesforce Developer certification can demonstrate high skills in the sales and application design market. One can register as a member with Salesforce through visiting their website and signing up as a member. This may help you study and earn other certifications offered by Salesforce.

The importance of Customer Journey Mapping and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Solutions

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder – Customer experience is the next big marketing race and for good reasons! Companies have started to recognize the importance of delivering superior customer experiences (CX) that helps them gain a competitive advantage. Whether it is customer service, product quality or the way the customers feel about the brands they interact with, customer experience is a top deciding factor on whether the customer will continue to do business with the brand.

According to a survey conducted by Econsultancy on the Top Digital Marketing Trends, they asked companies to state the single most exciting opportunity for 2019, and whopping prioritized customer experience more than any other opportunity. customer Experience is critical to business success, poor customer journey planning could become a serious threat to a company’s brand value. Without Customer Journey Mapping, you will fail to provide a good customer experience because, you haven’t identified where someone is in their relationship with you, what their pain points are, and what information they are looking for and how they want that information to be delivered. As a result, you will risk not targeting people at the right time, on the right channel, and with the right message. Let’s take a scenario of how poor customer experience can affect customer retention and brand value.

Customer Experience Scenario

This experience was of Linda, a retail customer who spent her time with her in-laws for a Christmas dinner, where a popular retailer failed to create a positive customer experience in-store for a family member who purchased pastries for the festive season.

Everything had been ordered online frictionless with the click of a few buttons. The retailer designed an intuitive customer journey throughout the e-commerce website and was also able to personalize offers based on customer behavior.

Not just the usual ‘customer who bought this also bought X products’ but also took to consider the multiple ways customers interact with similar brands and served up the right content right on time.

However, unfortunately, this is where the great customer experience stopped. The in-store experience did not match with the retailer’s online experience. There was a pretty long queue in-store, however, it happened that the queue was for Christmas meat orders, not the desserts that were ordered by her family member. Clearly, the retailer was aware of this fact because of the digital interactions, which reflected knowledge of this order, but the data for this was unavailable on the in-store systems, which becomes an issue for those customers who need pickup rather than delivery.

This scenario leads to three important realizations about the retailer: 

  • They missed the opportunities to use available data
  • They did not consider all the channels across the customer journey
  • They didn’t shift to meet rising customer expectations (especially around the holidays)

Again, it’s not just the experience of this specific customer – research by Aberdeen Group shows that brands with the strongest omnichannel customer experience strategies retain an average of 89% of customers when compared to 33% for companies with poor omnichannel strategies.

Ultimately, immaterial of the reasoning, the lack of focus on the customer journey is the cause of many disgruntled customers. However, focusing on the customer journey can lead to improved customer loyalty and increased revenues. This is supported by a study by Oracle that found 86% of customers will pay more for better brand experiences, but only 1% feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations.

So, how can you combat these issues? Well, there is no cookie cutter solution here. However, here’s one thing you need to consider to deliver omnichannel customer experiences – Map the entire journey.

How Customer Journey Mapping from Salesforce Marketing Cloud Works?

Customer Journey mapping can help marketers transform customer journeys throughout the lifecycle. And Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a leading Marketing Automation solution with Journey Builder being one of its most sought-after features requested by leading brands to design one-to-one marketing solutions, it offers a world of unique benefits to the marketers.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder Benefits

  • Improved Customer Engagement: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder empowers you to increase campaign performance through a multi-channel approach, accelerating customer engagement through diverse ways.
  • Real-Time Tracking: Administer campaigns easily, check interactions and test all campaign elements in real time
  • Personalized Experiences: Deliver timely and appropriate content that reaches customers when, where, and how they prefer
  • No Technical Expertise required: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder helps you assess your marketing strategy with random split-testing, estimating progress towards campaign aims centered on particular customer facts
  • Diverse Touch-points for Greater Engagement: Manage customer journeys at every potential touch point and enriches customer experience according to the individual behavior and personalized directing
  • Broader Customer View: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder enables you to get a 360-degree view of your customer to convey the right message, at the right time, via integrations like email, SMS, mobile push, or Predictive Intelligence
  • Save Time: By direct access to individual customer journeys, amend and strategize your existing marketing funnel, saving all the time otherwise spent on bridging the gaps created due to lack of specific analytics.
  • Integrate Information from all Salesforce: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder is connected to the other parts of the Salesforce ecosystem- the Sales Cloud and the Service Cloud; which helps saving all the resources needed to feed information and migrate data from other Salesforce wings.

Benefits of Salesforce for Non-Profits

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The non-profit organization seems to benefit the most out of the Salesforce CRM application compared to other CRM solutions.

Non-profit Communities

There are numerous communities for non-profits that are maintaining better relationships with Salesforce. The Non-profit Starter Pack overlay is considered to be among the most popular and fastest-growing CRM solutions that are specially designed for non-profits. There is a huge community that is active and with whom the best practices can be shared and the queries will be answered instantly by those communities. Thus the nonprofits can get the most out of using Salesforce for nonprofits. Furthermore, there is also a community of independent consultants as well as developers who will help in assisting the requirements of the development team by leveraging on the Salesforce’s capabilities.

Reliable and Cost-effective

Organizations having multiple locations can significantly lower the costs associated with infrastructure using Salesforce for nonprofits. This makes Salesforce a hosted and reliable solution for non-profit organizations. Instead of investing to develop a separate in-house location for connecting with the team members, Salesforce non-profit CRM will help distributed team members to securely connect with each other user devices such as desktop, laptop, and mobile devices, etc.

Salesforce offers a powerful program to nonprofits at a price significantly lesser than other application costs available in the market. As far as 10 user licenses of the Enterprise Edition are provided for qualified non-profits with an option to avail additional licenses at a discounted price tag. Thus it provides nonprofits with a cost-effective option making it a suitable choice as the perfect CRM solutions provider.

Enhanced Reporting Engine

Unlike many other CRM solutions, Salesforce non-profit CRM provides a stronger reporting engine that is designed to satisfy the needs and requirements of non-profit organizations. The Salesforce CRM solutions ensure the effective availability of data wherever required as a means to support the most relevant decisions. The data availability is assured with the help of the presence of supporting tools such as formula fields, triggers, roll-up summary fields, and workflows, etc.

Salesforce as a platform

Salesforce non-profit CRM is both software as well as a platform capable of delivering sophisticated CRM that are tailored to meet the objectives of the non-profit organizations. Some of the key features of Salesforce CRM include the flexibility it offers and also it is extendible and customizable.

Most of the other CRM platforms that are available for non-profits provide only typically closed platforms which would take years to allow new features to be allowed in-house. Salesforce CRM is, however, an open platform that has been used for developing thousands of apps and thereby enhancing as well as making those apps available for the purpose of extending Salesforce’s native functionality which would be available through the Salesforce AppExchange.

Conclusion

These above-mentioned benefits make Salesforce CRM an ideal choice among non-profit organizations especially because of the user-friendly features and flexibility it provides for non-profit organizations. Thus Salesforce CRM has become an important aspect for non-profit organizations in providing cost-effective solutions for them.

How to implement Salesforce Communities

Salesforce Communities is now considered as an important requirement that helps businesses to establish a connection with their customers, partners as well as employees. Specific communities are created within the Salesforce communities that are tailored to satisfy the varying requirement of the customers and thus help in easier sharing of the information.

Companies can significantly reduce the costs with Salesforce communities at the same time also helps in increasing customer engagement by listening to the customers who are the driving force behind the growth of businesses.

This article explains the steps that companies have to follow in the successful implementation of Salesforce communities.

Enable the Salesforce Communities This is the first step in achieving a successful implementation of Salesforce communities. Before enabling, check whether your company has the Communities License which can be identified by navigating to the Setup tab and clicking Company Profile> Company Information. Go through the Licenses listed at the bottom of the page. If you have the Communities license, then navigate to Customize> Communities> Settings and click the option denoted as ‘Enable Communities’. Create a unique domain name and a unique URL for the Salesforce Communities by checking on the availability for whether the same name is used by any other businesses.

Community Creation This is the second step in sdfc communities implementation in which a Salesforce community is created. Enter the name of the community within the name column and then enter a description within the description space. Once done, the customized URL then has to be entered next to the URL option. Choose the ‘Create’ tab once the above-mentioned details are filled. You will now be able to view the Preview page of the Salesforce Community and can be viewed only by the administrators. You can also make any edits while in the preview mode.

Addition of Members Select the profiles of the members you wish to add in the Salesforce Communities. The permission sets will then have to be defined for allowing certain employee categories to have access towards each community.

Addition of Content Select the ideal tab that is relevant to the community from the menu other than the Chatter tab which would be the landing page automatically if no other tabs are selected.

Include branding to the community page companies can upload the logo, tag line into header and footer tabs followed by color selection and thereby extend the company’s branding to the community page.

Login Page Customization The login options in the sdfc communities page can be customized by allowing customers to make use of Facebook or self-registration, which will allow them to easily sign-in.

Email Configuration The footer of the email message can be added with the generic email address, company address, and branding elements and thus allowing companies to easily customize the email setup for their Salesforce Communities. With this, the basic procedure of setting up a community page can be said to have completed.

Preview Click on the option that would help switch to Salesforce Communities page from community setup page and check whether the elements are available as the companies wanted it to be.

Feedback Share the preview with managers as well as executives within the company and get their feedbacks before publishing it.

Publish Take into consideration feedbacks if any and then implement those necessary changes. Once done, click on ‘Publish’ and the Salesforce Communities are said to have been successfully implemented.

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